The task taken up by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has a lot to do the music industry spread across the US. The foremost aims of this association are managing good quality music and save from harm the copy right restricted music. In order to meet this goal RIAA takes legal action against people the rules set down by RIAA for this purpose. Illegitimate download of music has been a major issue taken up by RIAA. Free download of any copyright protected music is strictly prohibited. For fear of legal actions threatened by RIAA many online music websites had to close down. This shows that RIAA plays a decisive part in the matters of any music download. A short description of function of RIAA is given under.
Frequent and illegal copy or download of music without permission from copyright holders led to a change in the policy of the association. The operation is currently supervised by Mitch Bainwol. It used to be that in the 1990?s Napster which was an online music file sharing service was on hand and people in large numbers downloaded all kind of music from it free of cost. Without any payment they used to download, burn and share music with friends. With progress in computer technology the matter of copyright violations came more and more into focus.
RIAA is severely opposed to P2P music sharing. In the year 2000 steps were taken to restrain the P2P trading of music. Though the trading is reduced in significant proportions but it can not be said to have vanished altogether. The war launched by RIAA against P2P sharing is far from over. Besides traders even individuals are prohibited from P2P music sharing
RIAA has sought to actively educate people about its policies. It has identified the youth as a special target. Through many seminars, forum discussions, and presentations attempts have been made to raise the awareness of youth RIAA?s set of rules and guidelines. RIAA has approached many colleges and universities to help them in this campaign. This has resulted in universities and colleges taking care to not only educate their students about it but also seeing to it that inside the university or college premises no illegal music is downloaded.
RIAA has nothing against copying a CD for personal use. If an individual has bought a CD legally he can burn a copy of the same. The objection is when the burning is done for commercial purpose. RIAA will take legal action againstpeople making copies for illegal sales.
RIAA has also nothing against the latest tools and technologies which are coming into the market and help in piracy of music. The organization places the onus of misuse of technology on people and not on technology.
RIAA also holds belief that pirated music hurts the artists as their music is played on inferior quality CDs and without their due permission. The due permission here actually refers to legally buying the music. “It makes people listen to poor quality music that was actually developed with so much hard work? is the belief of RIAA.
Though RIAA defends itself vigorously many people are not in agreement to their tactics. Many have expressed their apprehension that music would die if RIAA insists on having its way.